Abstract
Background: Research on family meals in the past decade has shown a positive association between family meal frequency and adolescent healthy dietary intake. However, less is known about factors within the home environment, such as parenting style, that may be associated with family meal patterns. Objective: The purpose of this study is to test cross-sectional and 5-year longitudinal associations between parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful) and the frequency of family meals among adolescents. Study design: Data were from Project Eating Among Teens, a population-based study comprised of youth from diverse ethnic/racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Two cohorts of adolescents (middle school and high school) completed in-class surveys in 1999 (Time 1) and mailed surveys in 2004 (Time 2). Multiple linear regression models were used to predict mean frequency of family meals at Time 1 and Time 2 from adolescent report of parenting style (both mother and father) at Time 1. Cross-sectional analyses included both adolescent cohorts (n=4,746) and longitudinal analyses included only the younger cohort (n=806) because family meal frequency was not assessed in the older cohort at Time 2. Results: Cross-sectional results for adolescent girls indicated a positive association between maternal and paternal authoritative parenting style and frequency of family meals. For adolescent boys, maternal authoritative parenting style was associated with more frequent family meals. Longitudinal results indicated that authoritative parenting style predicted higher frequency of family meals 5 years later, but only between opposite sex parent/adolescent dyads. Conclusions: Future research should identify additional factors within the home environment that are associated with family meal frequency to develop effective interventions that result in increased family meals for youth. Also, future research should investigate the mealtime behaviors of authoritative parents and identify specific behaviors that dietetics practitioners and other health care providers could share with parents of adolescents to help them increase family meal frequency.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1036-1042 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of the American Dietetic Association |
| Volume | 110 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2010 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:FUNDING/SUPPORT: This research was supported by a grant from the Maternal and Child Health Program (Title V, Social Security Act), Health Resources and Services Administration , Department of Health and Human Services , grant no. MCJ-27034 , D. Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD, was principal investigator. J. M. Berge, PhD, is supported by a grant from Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health and a grant administered by the Deborah E. Powell Center for Women's Health at the University of Minnesota , grant no. K12HD055887 from the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Maternal and Child Health Program, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development or the National Institutes of Health.